Madly Yours novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: Back in the Country
The day her hearing returns, voiceless Colette hears Porter forgive Allegra for running her down, slaps Allegra twice, is left bleeding on broken glass while he shields Allegra, and says yes to her mother's arranged marriage, only to learn Leland Halstead asked for her by name.
"Porter, you actually flew Allegra home? What happens when Colette finds out?"
I stopped with my hand on the door of the private room.
I'd had my hearing back for one day.
That was the first sentence I'd heard through a door in thirteen months.
Allegra was back.
"She won't find out if nobody tells her," Porter said.
His voice was flat and easy, the voice he used to order wine.
"It's been a year. Allegra was homesick."
"Homesick for you, maybe."
The whole room laughed.
I knew every one of those laughs.
"Don't be disgusting. She's my sister."
"Your sister had her tongue down your throat in the parking garage twenty minutes ago."
"She caught me off guard," Porter said. "She's a kid. She leaned in and I didn't move fast enough."
Then his voice went hard.
"Not one word when Colette gets here. I mean it."
Somebody cleared his throat.
"Porter, real talk. She paid a guy to run Colette down."
"Colette almost died. She still can't hear a car horn. You're just letting that go?"
I held my breath.
"Allegra was nineteen," Porter said. "It was a tantrum."
"She's spent a year in London paying for it. She's grown up. I'm not holding a grudge."
A tantrum.
I put my palm flat against the wall.
Thirteen months ago a pickup ran a red light and threw me twenty feet across a crosswalk.
When I woke up, the world had no sound in it.
Porter sat by my hospital bed with red eyes and swore he'd kill her himself.
He flew me to doctors in Boston and Zurich.
Every time I broke down, he held me and promised she'd never come near me again.
I believed every word I read on his lips.
Two nights ago I ran a fever of 104.
Yesterday morning I woke up and heard rain on the window.
The same fever took my voice.
The doctor said my vocal cords were too swollen to use for weeks.
I didn't care.
I could hear.
In my coat pocket was a black velvet box.
Inside was a men's ring I'd had made for him, and a card in my handwriting.
I can hear you.
My phone buzzed against the box.
It was my mother.
Wendy Sheridan had never begged me for anything in my life.
Colette, I'm begging you. Lexi is gone and the wedding is Saturday.
If the Halsteads find out we backed out, we lose everything. Please come home.
We'd fought about it an hour ago, by text, because I couldn't talk on the phone.
My stepsister had run from her wedding to Leland Halstead.
San Francisco called him the madman.
He'd had black rages since the crash that killed his father.
Three brides had already backed out.
My mother wanted me to walk down the aisle in Lexi's place.
I'd told her no.
I'd told her I could hear again, and Porter loved me, and we were finally getting married.
I'd told her Porter would help us.
I put the phone away and pushed the door open.
Nine faces turned toward me.
Porter went white for half a second.
Then he smiled and stood up.
"Relax," somebody muttered. "She's deaf. God, my heart."
"I thought we were dead."
They laughed again, right in front of me.
Then I saw her.
Allegra sat on the arm of Porter's chair in a tiny white dress.
Her long nails rested on his shoulder.
She looked me up and down and smiled, sweet as frosting.
She walked over to me slowly, shaping every word big so I could read her lips.
"Hi, Colette. You can't hear me, can you?"
She tilted her head.
"That's so sad. The truck didn't kill you. It just broke you."
"Allegra, stop," Porter said.
His eyes flicked to my face.
He was checking whether I'd caught it.
Allegra laughed and turned her back on me to talk to him.
"Why were you so scared she'd find out? She can't hear a thing."
"I could call her a pathetic little bitch right now and she'd just stand there and..."
I turned her around by the shoulder and slapped her.
The crack was the loudest sound I'd heard all year.
The room went dead quiet.
A red handprint bloomed across her cheek.
"You hit me," she said. "You hit me!"
She swung at me.
I caught her wrist and slapped her again with my other hand.
Her hair stuck to her lip gloss.
Her mouth hung open.
Porter stared at me.
His eyes went to the mirrored liquor cabinet behind Allegra, then back to me.
I watched him decide I'd seen her face in the glass.
He breathed out.
Allegra shrieked and went for my face with her nails.
I grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled.
"Enough!"
Porter crossed the room and got between us.
He grabbed my wrist, not hers.
"Colette, stop it!"
I pulled.
His grip didn't move.
I opened my mouth to tell him to let go.
Nothing came out but a dry scrape of air.
He looked at my mouth for one second too long.
Allegra's hand came over his arm.
I jerked my head back.
A nail ripped across my cheek.
Something warm ran down to my jaw.
Porter saw the blood and shoved Allegra off hard.
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
She stumbled back into the liquor cabinet.
It rocked.
Bottles slid off the glass shelves.
"Look out!"
Porter dove past me and covered Allegra with his whole body.
I got my arms over my head.
A bottle of scotch hit my shoulder blade.
I went down on my knees.
Three more came down on my back.
Glass burst across the floor.
Gin soaked through my sweater, ice cold.
I lay on my side in it.
Something wet ran out of my hairline and into my eye.
The ringing in my ears was so loud I thought the silence had come back.
Then, through it, Allegra sobbing.
"Porter, my ankle! It hurts so much!"
"Where? Show me." His voice cracked. "Okay. I've got you. I've got you."
I watched him lift her off the floor.
He carried her past me.
His shoe crunched glass an inch from my fingers.
"Porter," one of his friends said. "Colette's bleeding."
He didn't stop at the door.
"Get her an Uber. She knows her way around a hospital."
The door swung shut behind them.
Nobody moved.
I got up on my own.
My left arm hung heavy and wrong.
The velvet box had fallen out of my pocket into the gin.
I picked it up and opened it.
The card was soaked, but the words were still there.
I set the box on the bar, open, facing the door he'd carried her through.
Then I took out my phone with my good hand and smeared blood across the screen typing to my mother.
I'll marry him. Tell me where to be.
She answered before I reached the elevator.
Thank God. Thank God, baby.
Then a second text.
You should know something. He never wanted Lexi.
Then a third.
Leland Halstead asked for you by name. Two months ago. I told him you were engaged.
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